


Bigger on the Inside

by trickybonmot



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Friendship, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, sherlock's self-destructive tendencies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-21
Updated: 2012-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-14 18:24:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trickybonmot/pseuds/trickybonmot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a quick little one-off, set immediately after A Study in Pink.  Sherlock reflects on the new person in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bigger on the Inside

It was nearly dawn when Sherlock finally fell into bed, but even so, he didn’t think he could sleep. His body was tired, but his mind still raced with thoughts and images, still working to process all that had happened in the past two days. Had it been only two days? It seemed far longer.

Only the morning before -- perhaps 44 hours ago -- he’d met that fellow Stamford at St. Bart’s, one of Molly’s colleagues. (Early 40s, married, no children due to his wife’s infertility. Faithful to her despite the growing stress on their relationship. Guilty penchant for egg sandwiches.) Stamford himself was of little consequence, but then -- John Watson.

Sherlock gave up on sleep and turned onto his back, folding his arms behind his head. On the ceiling he could see a bar of light shining up from the street below. The rest of room was an assortment of dim rectangles, just threatening to come into sharper focus as the earth’s rotation did its business.

John Watson. He’d shot the cabbie just as Sherlock was about to take the pill. The sound, more than the cabbie’s sudden collapse, was what had stopped Sherlock swallowing it. He had been about to swallow it.

“You risk your life to prove you’re clever,” had been Watson’s -- John’s -- analysis. Sherlock had not contradicted him.

He’d held the pill between his finger and thumb, gazing at it in the light, making a show of an attempt at deduction. But he’d known, despite what the madman thought, it was only ever a fifty-fifty chance. There was no deduction, there was no game, only a sad old fool who’d so far been very lucky. Now either his or Sherlock’s luck was going to run out.

“You risk your life to prove you’re clever.”

His heart pounded as he looked at the pill. He wanted, badly, to take it. He felt himself standing on that knife-edge between life and death, and something, suddenly, became clear to him. He loved it, loved this place, this feeling. He’d gotten into the cab in order to be taken here, knowing his life would be the fare, and knowing he would give that, and more, to feel this. To be here, to feel this sharpness, this clarity, this high. He knew, even as the effect washed over him, that he was an addict. But somehow, in this moment, it didn’t seem very important. He touched the pill to his tongue, and a shudder ran through him, of pleasure, of fear--

And then, the shot. The sound of it shattered the moment, releasing Sherlock from the hypnosis that held him, allowing his willpower to surge back into the void. Afterward he felt dazed; he let everyone think it was because of the cabbie’s death, etc., but in truth all of that had affected him very little. Rather, it was the knowledge of how close he’d come to reverting, to losing his age-old battle against himself, that shook him. If it weren’t for that, he felt certain he would have realized much sooner that it was John who fired the shot.

John, whom he’d just met, who had followed him into danger, who had stood up to Mycroft ( _Mycroft!_ ), who had refused payment to spy on him, who had protected him, who had sided with him against Sally Donovan, who had shot a man to save him from himself. John, who was now living with him, sleeping just beyond that bar of light on the ceiling. 

Sherlock thought about him up there, tried to picture him sleeping. There were some things you never could deduce about a person; would John sleep peacefully under the blankets, or would he thrash and get tangled? Did he prefer a warm cocoon, or did he crave cool air against his skin? Did he sleep in pajamas, underwear, nothing? With his war-wound, he probably required a very specific type and arrangement of pillows; what was it? How many? 

He wondered what John would say if Sherlock told him the truth: that he didn’t risk his life to prove he was clever. He risked his life for the sake of risking it, cleverness being only an accessory, a device that made it easier to do it successfully. He knew John craved danger -- had perceived that almost immediately. But he felt certain that John wasn’t like him. John was after something else, something better and bigger than mere adrenaline. 

As Sherlock lay thinking, he heard a sound from the floor above, the creak of the bed, and then feet hitting the floor. A pause during which John must have been putting himself together, probably donning a dressing-gown (which meant he probably did not sleep in pajamas), and then footsteps on the stairs. Sherlock held still, listening as John went into the bathroom, closed the door, turned on the light, ran some water. He did not urinate -- interesting. It sounded like he was washing his face. 

So John couldn’t sleep either. What was keeping him awake? Nightmares? Very probably. Or perhaps thoughts of the man he had shot. Or regrets, doubts, about living with Sherlock. Christ knew he had reasons enough for those.

 _Go to sleep_ , Sherlock thought, as John went back up the stairs. The bed creaked again. Sherlock turned over on his stomach.

There was something about that man, that John. Physically, he was so -- compact. Not _short_ exactly, not _small_ , but self-contained, unextravagant, even unremarkable. And yet there was something about him, as though the core of him, his _self_ , was bigger than his body, was on the brink of spilling out at any moment. Bigger on the inside, Sherlock thought muzzily, half-sleeping. He’d seen some of it, maybe, today, but he wanted to see more. Much more. All of it. 

Sherlock’s thoughts devolved into nonsense as sleep overtook him. When he woke he would remember little of his dreams, except that he’d been wandering in a vast and beautiful country, and that country turned out to be John Watson.


End file.
